Casual Notes
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V.I. Lenin

Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/casual/index.htm


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V. I. Lenin
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Casual Notes
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I. Beat – But Not to Death!
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O n January 23, in Nizhni-Novgorod, the Moscow High Court of
      Justice, in a special session, with the participation
      of representatives of the social-estates , tried the
      case of the murder of the peasant Timofei Vasilyevich Vozdukhov,
      who had been taken to the police-station “to sober up”
      and there beaten up by four policemen, Shelemetyev, Shulpin,
      Shibayev, and Olkhovin, and by acting Station Sergeant Panov, so
      that he died in the hospital the next day.

Such is the simple tale of this case, which throws a glaring
      light upon what usually and always goes on in our
      police-stations.

As far as can be gathered from the extremely brief newspaper
      reports, what appears to have happened is the following. On
      April 20, Vozdukhov drove up to the Governor’s house in a
      cab. The superintendent of the Governor’s house came out to him;
      in giving evidence at the trial the superintendent stated that
      Vozdukhov, hatless, had been drinking but was not drunk, and
      that he, Vozdukhov, complained to him about a certain steamboat
      booking office having refused to sell him a ticket (?). The
      superintendent ordered Shelemetyev, the policeman on duty, to
      take him to the police-station. Vozdukhov was sufficiently sober
      to be able to speak quietly with Shelemetyev and on arriving at
      the police-station quite distinctly told Sergeant Panov his name
      and occupation. Notwithstanding all this, Shelemetyev, no doubt
      with the knowledge of Panov, who had just questioned Vozdukhov, “pushed” the latter, not into the common
      cell, in which there were a number of other drunkards, but into
      the adjoining “soldiers’ lock-up.” As he
      pushed him, his sword got caught on the latch of the door and it
      cut his hand slightly; imagining that Vozdukhov was holding the
      sword, he rushed at him to strike him, shouting that his hand
      bad been cut. He struck Vozdukhov with all his might in the
      face, in the chest, in the side; he struck him so hard that
      Vozdukhov fell, striking his forehead on the floor and begging
      for mercy.  “Why are you hitting me?” he implored,
      according to the statement of a witness, Semakhin, who was in
      the neighbouring cell at the time. “It was not my
      fault. Forgive me, for Christ’s sake!” According to the
      evidence of this witness, it was not Vozdukhov who was drunk,
      but sooner Shelemetyev. Shelemetyev’s colleagues, Shulpin and
      Shibayev, who had been continuously drinking in the
      police-station since the first day of Easter week (April 20 was
      Tuesday, the third day of Easter week), learned that Shelemetyev
      was “teaching” (the expression used in the indictment)
      Vozdukhov a lesson. They went into the soldiers’ lock-up
      accompanied by Olkhovin, who was on a visit from another
      station, and attacked Vozdukhov with their fists and
      feet. Police Sergeant Panov came on the scene and struck
      Vozdukhov on the head with a book, and then with his
      fists. “Oh! they beat and beat him so hard that my belly
      ached for pity,” said a woman witness, who was under arrest
      there at the time. When the “lesson” was over, the
      sergeant very coolly ordered Shibayev to wipe the blood from the
      victim’s face—it would not look so bad then; the chief might
      see it—and then to fling him into the common
      cell. “Brothers!” cried Vozdukhov to the other
      detainees, “see how the police have beaten me. Be my
      witnesses, I’ll lodge a complaint.” But he never lived to
      lodge the complaint.  The following morning, he was found in a
      state of unconsciousness and sent to the hospital where he died
      within eight hours without coming to himself again. A
      post-mortem revealed ten broken ribs, bruises all over his body,
      and haemorrhage of the brain.

The court sentenced Shelemetyev, Shulpin, and Shibayev to four
      years’ penal servitude, and Olkhovin and Panov to one
      month’s detention , finding them guilty only of
      “insulting behaviour.”...

With this sentence we shall commence our examination of the
      case.  Those sentenced to penal servitude were charged according
      to Articles 346 and 1490, Part II, of the Penal Code. The first
      of these articles provides that an official inflicting wounds or
      injuries in the exercise of his duties is liable to the maximum
      penalty reserved “for the perpetration of such a
      crime.” Article 1490, Part II, provides for a penalty of
      from eight to ten years’ penal servitude for inflicting torture
      resulting in death. Instead of inflicting the maximum
      penalty , the court, consisting of representatives of the
      social-estates and crown judges, reduced the sentence by two degrees (sixth degree, eight to ten years of
      penal servitude; seventh degree, four to six years), i.e., it
      made the maximum reduction of sentence permitted by the law in
      cases of extenuating circumstances, and, moreover, imposed the minimum penalty of that low degree. In a word, the
      court did all it could to let the culprits off as lightly as
      possible; in fact, it did more than it could, because it evaded
      the law concerning the “maximum penalty.” Of course,
      we do not wish to assert that “supreme justice”
      demanded precisely ten and not four years’ penal servitude; the
      essential point is that the murderers were declared to be
      murderers and that they were sentenced to penal servitude. But
      we cannot refrain from noting a tendency characteristic of the
      court of crown judges and representatives of the estates; when
      they try a police official, they are ready to display the
      greatest clemency, but when they sit in judgment over an act
      committed against the police, as is well known, they display
      inexorable

severity. [1]

With a police sergeant before it, how could the court refuse him
      clemency? He had met Vozdukhov as he was brought in and
      apparently had ordered him to be placed, not in a common cell,
      but first, in order to teach him a lesson, in the soldiers’
      lock-up. He took part in the assault, using his fists and a book
      (no doubt a copy of the Penal Laws); he gave orders to have all
      traces of the crime removed (to wipe away the blood). On the
      night of April 20 he reported to the inspector, Mukhanov, upon
      his return, “everything in order at the station in his
      charge” (his exact words!)—but he had nothing to do with
      the murderers, he was only guilty of an insulting act, just
      insulting behaviour, punishable by detention.  Quite naturally,
      this gentleman, Mr. Panov, innocent of murder, is still in the
      police service occupying the post of a village police
      sergeant. Mr. Panov has merely transferred his useful directing
      activities in “teaching lessons” to the common people
      from the town to the country. Now, reader, tell us in all
      conscience, can Sergeant Panov understand the sentence of the
      court to mean anything else than advice in the future to remove
      the traces of a crime more thoroughly, to “teach” in
      such a manner as to leave no trace? You did right in ordering
      the blood to be wiped from the face of the dying man, but you
      allowed him to die.  That, pal, was careless. In the future be
      more careful and never forget the first and last commandment of
      the Russian

Derzhimorda [6] : “Beat—but not to
      death!”

From the ordinary human point of view, the sentence Panov drew
      was a mockery of justice. It reveals a cringing, servile spirit,
      an attempt to throw the whole blame upon the minor police
      officers and to shield their immediate chief with whose
      knowledge, approval, and participation this brutal crime was
      committed. From the juridical point of view, the sentence is an
      example of the casuistry resorted to by bureaucratic judges who
      are themselves not far removed from police sergeants. Speech was
      given to man to conceal his thoughts, say the diplomats. Our
      jurists may say that the law is given to distort the concepts of
      guilt and responsibility. Indeed, what refined juridical art is
      required to be able to reduce complicity in torture to simple
      insulting behaviour! Panov was guilty of an offence equal in
      gravity to that perhaps committed by a factory hand who possibly
      on the morning of April 20 mischievously struck Vozdukhov’s cap
      off his head! In fact, milder than that: it was not an offence
      but merely an infringement.  Even participation in a brawl (let
      alone the brutal assault upon a helpless man), if it results in
      a fatality, is liable to a severer punishment than that meted
      out to the police sergeant. Legal chicanery took advantage of
      the fact that the law provides for various degrees of punishment
      for inflicting injuries in the exercise of official duties and
      allows the court the discretion to pronounce sentences ranging
      from two months’ imprisonment to permanent banishment to
      Siberia, according to the circumstances of the case. Of course,
      it is quite a rational rule not to bind a judge to strictly
      formal definitions, but to allow him certain latitude. Our
      professors of criminal law have often praised Russian
      legislation for this and have emphasised its liberal
      character. However, in praising our law, they lose sight of one
      trifle, namely, that, for rational laws to be applied, it is
      necessary to have judges who are not reduced to the role of mere
      officials, that it is necessary to have representatives of the
      public in the court, and for public opinion to play its part in
      the examination of cases. Secondly, the assistant public
      prosecutor came to the aid of the court by withdrawing the charge against Panov (and
      Olkhovin) of torture and cruelty and pleading only for a
      sentence for insulting behaviour. In his plea, the assistant
      prosecutor called expert evidence to prove that the blows
      inflicted by Panov were neither numerous nor painful. As you
      see, the juridical sophistry is not very ingenious: since Panov
      did less beating than the others, it may be
      argued that his punches were not very painful, and since they were not very painful, it may be argued that his offence was not
      “torture and cruelty”; and since it was not torture
      and cruelty, then it was merely insulting behaviour. All this
      works out to everybody’s satisfaction, and Mr. Panov remains in
      the ranks of the guardians of law and

order.... [2]

We have just referred to the participation of representatives of
      the public in court trials, and to the part that should be
      played by public opinion. The case in point is an excellent
      illustration.  In the first place, why was this case tried, not
      by a jury, but by a court of crown judges and representatives of
      the estates?  Because the government of Alexander III, having
      declared ruthless war upon every public aspiration towards
      liberty and independence, very soon found that trial by jury was
      dangerous. The reactionary press declared trial by jury to be
      “trial by the street,” and launched against it a
      campaign which, be it said in passing, continues to this
      day. The government adopted a reactionary programme.  Having
      crushed the revolutionary movement of the seventies, it
      insolently declared to the representatives of the people that it
      regarded them as the “street,” the mob, which must not
      interfere in the work of legislation, let alone interfere in the
      administration of the state, and which must be driven from the
      sanctuary where Russian citizens are tried and punished
      according to the Panov method. In 1887 a law was passed removing
      crimes committed by and against officials from the jurisdiction
      of courts sitting with a jury and transferring them to courts of
      crown judges and representatives of the estates. It is well
      known that these representatives of the estates, merged into a
      single collegium with the bureaucratic judges, are mute
      super-numeraries playing the miserable role of witnesses ready
      to say yes to everything the officials of the Department of
      Justice decide. This is one of a long series of laws adopted
      during the latest reactionary period of Russian history and
      having one single tendency in common: to re-establish a
      “sound authority.” Under the pressure of
      circumstances, the government in the latter half of the
      nineteenth century was compelled to come into contact with the
      “street”; but the character of the street changed with
      astonishing rapidity and the ignorant inhabitants gave place to
      citizens who were beginning to understand their rights and who
      were capable even of producing the champions of their
      rights. Realising this, the government drew back in horror, and
      is now making convulsive efforts to surround itself by a Chinese
      Wall, to immure itself in a fortress into which no
      manifestations of independent public action can penetrate....
      But I have strayed somewhat from my subject.

Thanks to the reactionary law, the street was deprived of the
      right to try representatives of the government. Officials have
      been tried by officials. This has affected, not only the
      sentence passed by the court, but also the character of the
      preliminary investigation and the trial. Trial by the street is
      valuable because it breathes a living spirit into the
      bureaucratic formalism which pervades our government
      institutions. The street is interested, not only, and not so
      much, in the definition of the given offence (insulting
      behaviour, assault, torture), or in the category of punishment
      to be imposed; it is interested in exposing thoroughly and
      bringing to public light the significance and all the social and
      political threads of the crime in order to draw lessons in
      public morals and practical politics from the trial. The street
      does not want to see in the court “an official
      institution,” in which functionaries apply to given cases
      the corresponding articles of the Penal Code, but a public
      institution which exposes the ulcers of the present system,
      which provides material for criticising it and, consequently,
      for improving it. Impelled by its practical knowledge of public
      affairs and by the growth of political consciousness, the street
      is discovering the truth for which our official, professorial
      jurisprudence, weighed down by its scholastic shackles, is
      groping with such difficulty and timidity—namely, that in the
      fight against crime the reform of social and political
      institutions is much more important than the imposition of
      punishment. For this reason the reactionary publicists and the
      reactionary government hate, and cannot help hating, trial by
      the street. For this reason the curtailments put on the
      competency of jury courts and the restrictions on publicity run
      like a scarlet thread throughout the whole of the post-Reform
      history of Russia; indeed, the reactionary character of the
      “post-Reform” epoch was exposed immediately after the law of 1864, reforming our “judicature,”
      came into

force. [3] The absence of “trial by the street” was markedly felt
      in this particular case. Who in the court that tried this case
      could have been interested in its social aspect, and who would
      have sought to bring it out prominently? The public prosecutor?
      The official who is closely connected with the police, who
      shares responsibility for the detention of prisoners and the
      manner in which they are treated, who, in certain cases, is
      actually the chief of police? We have seen that the assistant
      prosecutor even withdrew the charge of torture against
      Panov. The civil plaintiff—in the event that Vozdukhova, the
      widow of the murdered man and a witness at the trial, had put in
      a civil claim against the murderers? But how was this simple
      woman to know that it was permissible to bring a civil claim for
      damages before a criminal court? But even had she known it,
      would she have been able to retain a lawyer?  And even had she
      been able to do so, could a lawyer have been found who was
      willing to call public attention to the state of affairs brought
      to light by this murder? And even if such a lawyer had been
      found, would his ”civic zeal” have been supported by such
      “delegates” of the public as the representatives of
      the social-estates? Picture to yourself a rural district elder—
      I have in mind a provincial court—embarrassed in his rustic
      clothes, not knowing what to do with his rough, peasant hands,
      awkwardly trying to conceal his feet encased in greased
      top-boots, gazing with awe upon His Excellency, the president of
      the court, who is seated on the same bench with him. Or imagine
      a city mayor, a fat merchant, breathing heavily in his
      unaccustomed livery, with his chain of office round his neck,
      trying to ape his neighbour, a Marshal of the Nobility, a
      gentleman in a nobleman’s uniform, who looks sleek and well
      tended, with aristocratic manners. By his side are judges, men
      who have gone through the hard grind of the school of
      bureaucracy, genuine functionaries who have grown grey in the
      service and are filled with a consciousness of the importance of
      the duty they have to fulfill—to try representatives of the
      authorities whom the street is not worthy to try. Would not this
      scene dampen the ardour of the most eloquent lawyer?  Would it
      not remind him of the ancient aphorism: “neither cast ye
      your pearls before...”?

And so it happened that the case was rushed through at express
      speed, as if all concerned were eager to get it off their hands
      as quickly as

possible, [4] as if they feared to rake too thoroughly in the muck; one may
      get accustomed to living near a cesspool and not notice the foul
      odours emanating from it, but as soon as an attempt is made to
      cleanse it, the stench assails the nostrils, not only of the
      inhabitants of the particular street, but also of those of the
      neighbouring streets.

Just think of the number of questions that naturally arise and
      that no one has taken the trouble to clear up! Why did Vozdukhov
      go to the Governor? The indictment—the document which
      embodied the effort of the prosecuting authorities to disclose
      the crime—not only failed to reply to this question, but
      deliberately obscured it with the statement that Vozdukhov
      “was detained in a state of intoxication in the courtyard
      of the Governor’s house by policeman Shelemetyev.” It even
      gives ground for the assumption that Vozdukhov was brawling—
      and where do you think? In the courtyard of the Governor’s
      house! In actuality, Vozdukhov drove up to the
      Governor’s house in a cab in order to lodge a
      complaint —this fact was established. What did he go
      to complain about? Ptitsyn, the superintendent of the Governor’s
      house, stated that Vozdukhov had complained about the refusal of
      a steamship booking office to sell him a ticket (?). The witness
      Mukhanov, formerly inspector of the station in which Vozdukhov
      was assaulted (and now governor of the provincial prison in
      Vladimir), stated that he had heard from Vozdukhov’s wife that
      she and her husband had been drinking and that in
      Nizhni they had been beaten up in the river police-station and
      in the Rozhdestvensky police-station, and that Vozdukhov had
      gone to the Governor to complain about
      this . Notwithstanding the fact that the witnesses
      obviously contradicted each other, the court did not make the
      slightest attempt to clear up the matter. On the contrary, one
      has every reason to conclude that the court did not
      wish to clear up the matter. Vozdukhov’s wife gave
      evidence at the trial, but no one took the trouble to ask her
      whether she and her husband had really been assaulted in several
      Nizhni police-stations, under what circumstances they had been
      arrested, in what premises they had been assaulted, and by whom,
      whether her husband had really wished to complain to the
      Governor, and whether he had mentioned his intention to any one
      else. Most likely the witness Ptitsyn, an official in the
      Governor’s office, was not inclined to accept complaints from
      Vozdukhov—who was not drunk, but whom, nevertheless, it was
      necessary to make sober!—against the police and ordered the intoxicated police-man Shelemetyev to take
      the complainant to the police-station to be sobered up. But this
      interesting witness was not cross-examined. The cabby, Krainov,
      who had driven Vozdukhov to the Governor’s house and
      subsequently to the police-station, was not questioned as to
      whether Vozdukhov had told him why he was going to the Governor,
      as to what he had said to Ptitsyn, and whether anybody else had
      heard the conversation. The court was satisfied merely to hear
      the brief written affidavit of Krainov (who did not appear in
      court) which testified that Vozdukhov had not been drunk, but
      only slightly intoxicated, and the assistant prosecutor had not
      even taken the trouble to subpoena this important witness. If we
      bear in mind that Vozdukhov, a sergeant in the army reserve and
      consequently a man of experience who must have known something
      about law and order, had said even after the last fatal blows,
      “I am going to lodge a complaint,” it appears more
      than likely that he went to the Governor to lodge a complaint
      against the police, that Ptitsyn lied to shield the police and
      that the servile judges and the servile prosecutor did not wish
      to bring this delicate story to light.

Further, why was Vozdukhov beaten? Again the indictment presents
      the case in a manner most favourable ... to the accused. The
      “motive for the torture,” it is alleged, was the
      cutting of Shelemetyev’s hand when he pushed Vozdukhov into the
      soldiers’ lock-up. The question arises, why was Vozdukhov, who
      spoke calmly both with Shelemetyev and with Panov, pushed
      (assuming that it was really necessary to push him!), not into the common cell, but
      first into the soldiers’ lock-up? He had been brought to the
      station to be sobered up—there were already a number of
      drunkards in the common cell, and later on Vozdukhov was put
      into the common cell; why, then, did Shelemetyev, after
      “introducing” him to Panov, push him into the soldiers’ lock-up? Evidently for the
      purpose of beating him. In the common cell there were a number
      of people, whereas in the soldiers’ lock-up Vozdukhov would be
      alone, and Shelemetyev could call to his aid his comrades and
      Mr. Panov, who was “in charge” of Police-Station No. 1
      at the time. Consequently, the torture was inflicted, not for
      some chance reason, but deliberately and with forethought.  We
      can assume one of two things—either that all who are taken to
      the police-station for sobering up (even when they behave
      themselves decently and quietly) are first put into the
      soldiers’ lock-up to be “taught a lesson,” or that
      Vozdukhov was put in there precisely for the reason
      that he had gone to the Governor to lodge a complaint against
      the police . The newspaper reports of the trial are so
      brief that one hesitates to express oneself categorically in
      favour of the second hypothesis (which is not at all
      improbable); but the preliminary investigation and the court
      examination could have cleared this point up beyond any
      doubt. It stands to reason that the court did not pay any
      attention whatever to this. I say “it stands to
      reason,” because the indifference of the court reflects not
      only bureaucratic formalism, but the simple point of view of the
      Russian man in the street.  “What is there to make a fuss
      about? A drunken muzhik was killed in a police-station! Worse
      things than that happen!” And the man in the street begins
      to relate scores of incomparably more revolting cases, in which
      the culprits have gone scot-free.  The remarks of the man in the
      street are absolutely just; nevertheless, his attitude is
      absolutely wrong and by his arguments he merely reveals his
      extreme, philistine short-sightedness. Are not incomparably more
      revolting cases of police tyranny possible in our country only
      because this tyranny is the common, everyday practice in every
      police-station? And is not our indignation impotent against
      these exceptional cases because we, with customary indifference,
      tolerate the “normal” cases; because our indifference
      remains unperturbed, even when a customary practice like an
      assault upon a drunken (or allegedly drunken) “muzhik”
      in a police-station rouses the protest of this very muzhik (who
      ought to be accustomed to this sort of thing), of this very
      muzhik, who paid with his life for his most impertinent attempt
      to submit a humble petition to the Governor?

There is another reason why we must not ignore this all too
      common case. It has long been held that the preventive
      significance of punishment is not in its severity, but in its
      inevitableness.  What is important is not that a crime shall be
      severely punished, but that not a single crime shall pass undiscovered. From this aspect, too, the
      present case is of interest. Illegal and savage assault is
      committed in police-stations in the Russian Empire—it may be
      said without exaggeration-daily and

hourly, [5] and only rare and very exceptional cases are brought up in
      court.  This is not in the least surprising, since the criminals
      are the very police who in Russia are charged with the duty of
      disclosing crime. These circumstances compel us to devote all
      the greater, if unusual, attention to those cases in which the
      courts are constrained to raise the curtain that conceals such
      habitual facts.

Note, for example, how the police perpetrate their assault. Five
      or six of them together set upon their victim with brutal
      cruelty, many of them are drunk, all are armed with swords. But
      not one of them ever strikes the victim with his sword. They are
      men of experience and they know how to beat a man up. A sword
      blow leaves a mark of guilt, but try and prove that bruises made
      by fists were inflicted by the police! “Arrested during a
      brawl in which he was beaten up,”—and your case isn’t
      worth a straw.  Even in the present instance, when the man, as
      it happened, was beaten to death (“the devil tempted him to
      die, a hefty muzhik like that! Who would have thought
      it!”), the prosecution was obliged to bring witnesses to
      testify that “Vozdukhov was absolutely sound in health
      before he was taken to the police-station.” Apparently, the
      murderers, who maintained throughout the trial that they had not
      beaten the man, stated that they had brought him to the station
      in a battered condition. It is an extremely difficult matter to
      get witnesses to give evidence in a case like this. By a happy
      chance, the window between the common cell and the soldiers’
      lock-up was not completely curtained off. True, instead of glass
      the panes consisted of sheets of tin with holes punched through,
      and on the side of the soldiers’ lock-up these holes were
      covered up by a leather curtain. By poking a finger through a
      hole, one could raise the curtain and see what was going on in
      the soldiers’ lock-up. Only through this circumstance was it
      possible at the trial to obtain a picture of the scene of the
      “lesson.” But such negligence as improperly curtained
      windows could exist only in the past century. In the twentieth
      century, the little window between the common cell and soldiers’
      lock-up in the Kremlin district Police-Station No. 1 in
      Nizhni-Novgorod is no doubt blocked up.... And since there are
      no witnesses, woe betide the poor fellow who finds himself in
      the soldiers’ lock-up!

In no country in the world is there such a multitude of laws as
      in Russia. We have laws for everything. There are special
      regulations governing detention in custody, which specifically
      state that detention is legally permissible only in special
      premises, subject to special supervision. As you see, the law is
      observed. In the police-station, there is a special “common
      cell.” But before a man is put into
      the common cell, it is “customary” to
      “shove” him into the soldiers’ lock-up. Although the
      role of the soldiers’ lock-up as a real torture chamber was
      perfectly clear throughout the trial, the judicial authorities
      did not even think of paying the matter the slightest attention.
      Surely, the prosecuting attorney cannot be expected to expose the excesses of our brutal police and to take measures against
      them!

We have referred to the question of witnesses in a case of this
      kind. At best, such witnesses can only be persons in the hands
      of the police. Only under the most exceptional circumstances
      would it be possible for an outsider to witness a police
      “lesson” given in a police-station. But it is possible
      for the police to influence the witnesses that are in their
      hands. And this is what happened in the present case. The
      witness Frolov, who at the time of the murder was in the common
      cell, stated during the preliminary investigation that Vozdukhov
      had been assaulted by the policemen and the sergeant; later he
      withdrew his testimony against Sergeant Panov; at the trial,
      however, he stated that none of the policemen had struck
      Vozdukhov, that he had been persuaded to give evidence against
      the police by Semakhin and Barinov (two other men in the common
      cell who were the principal witnesses for the prosecution), and
      that the police had not persuaded or prompted him to say this.
      The witnesses Fadeyev and Antonova stated that no one had laid a
      finger on Vozdukhov in the soldiers’ lock-up, that everything
      had been quiet there and no quarrelling had taken place.

As is to be seen, quite the usual thing happened. And the
      judicial authorities behaved with customary indifference. There
      is a law that provides severe penalties for perjury. A
      prosecution instituted against the two perjurers would throw
      further light on the outrages the police perpetrate against
      those who have the misfortune to fall into their hands and are
      almost completely defenceless (hundreds of thousands of the
      “common” people meet with such misfortune every
      day). But all that the court is concerned about is applying this
      or that article of the Penal Code; it is not in the least
      concerned about that defencelessness. This detail in the trial,
      like all the others, showed clearly how strong and
      all-entangling is the net, how persistent the canker, which can
      only be removed by abolishing the whole system of police tyranny
      and denial of the people’s rights.

About thirty-five years ago, F. M. Reshetnikov, a well-known
      Russian writer, met with an unpleasant adventure. One evening he
      went to the Assembly of Nobles in St. Petersburg under the
      mistaken impression that a concert was to he given there. The
      policeman at the door barred his way and shouted at him:
      “What’s the shoving? Who are you?” “A factory
      hand,” roughly replied Reshetnikov, stung to anger by this
      affront. What followed this reply, as related by Gleb Uspensky,
      was that Reshetnikov spent the night in the police-station, from
      which he emerged bruised and battered, bereft of his money and
      his ring. “I report this matter to Your Excellency,”
      wrote Reshetnikov in a petition to the St. Petersburg Chief of
      Police. “ I seek no compensation.  May I only humbly
      trouble you with the request that the police officers and their
      subordinates shall not beat the people.... As it is, the people have only sufferings in store for

      them.” [7]

The modest request which a Russian writer was bold enough to
      make to the chief of police of the capital so long ago has not
      yet been fulfilled and it cannot be
      fulfilled so long as the present political system
      lasts. At the present time, however, every honest man who is
      tormented by the contemplation of this brutality and violence
      turns towards the great new movement among the people that is
      mustering its forces in order to wipe all brutality from the
      face of the land of Russia and to achieve mankind’s finest
      ideals. During recent decades, hatred for the police has grown
      immensely and has become deep-rooted in the hearts of the masses
      of the common people. The development of urban life, the growth
      of industry, the spread of literacy, have all served to imbue
      even the uneducated masses with aspirations for a better life
      and a consciousness of their human dignity; the police, however,
      have remained as tyrannical and brutal as ever. To their
      bestiality we now see added a greater subtlety in the detection
      and persecution of the new, most dangerous enemy, i.e.,
      everything that brings to the masses of the people a ray of
      consciousness of their rights and confidence in their
      strength. Fertilised by this consciousness and this confidence,
      popular hatred will find vent, not in savage vengeance, but in
      the struggle for liberty.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
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[1] In passing, we shall adduce another fact indicating the
	  punishments imposed by our courts for various crimes. A few
	  days after the Vozdukhov murder trial, the Moscow District
	  Military Tribunal tried a private in the local artillery
	  brigade for stealing fifty pairs of trousers and a few pairs
	  of boots, while on guard duty in the storeroom. The sentence
	  was four years’ penal servitude. A
	  human life entrusted to the police is equal in value to
	  fifty pairs of trousers and a few pairs of boots entrusted
	  to a sentry. In this peculiar “equation” the whole
	  of our police state system is reflected as the sun is
	  reflected in a drop of water. The individual against state
	  power is nothing.  Discipline within the state power is
	  everything... pardon me, “everything” only for the
	  small fry. A petty thief is sentenced to penal servitude,
	  but the big thieves, the magnates, cabinet ministers, bank
	  directors, builders of railways, engineers, contracts, etc.,
	  who plunder the Treasury of property valued at tens and
	  hundreds of thousands of rubles are punished only on very
	  rare occasions, and at the worst are banished to remote
	  provinces where they may live at ease on their loot (the
	  bank thieves in Western Siberia), and from where it is easy
	  to escape across the frontier (Colonel of Gendermes
	  Meranville de Saint-Clair).
	— Lenin

[2] In Russia, instead of exposing the outrage in all its horror
	  before the court and the public, they prefer to hush up the
	  case in court and do nothing more than send out circular
	  letters and orders full of pompous but meaningless
	  phrases. For instance, a few days ago the Orel Chief of
	  Police issued an order which, confirming previous orders,
	  instructs the local police inspectors to impress upon
	  subordinates, personally and through their assistants, that
	  they must refrain from roughness and violence in handling
	  drunkards in the streets and when taking them to the
	  police-station to sober up. The order further specifies that
	  police officers must explain to their subordinates that it
	  is the duty of the police to protect drunkards who cannot be
	  left alone with obvious danger to themselves; that
	  subordinate police officers, whom the law has placed in the
	  position of first protectors and guardians of citizens,
	  must, therefore, in taking drunkards into custody, not only
	  refrain from treating them roughly and inhumanly, but must
	  do all they can to protect them until they have become
	  sober.  The order warns subordinate police officials that
	  only by such conscientious and lawful exercise of their
	  duties will they earn the confidence and respect of the
	  population, and that if, on the contrary, police officials
	  treat drunkards harshly and cruelly, or resort to violent
	  conduct incompatible with the duty of a police officer, who
	  should serve as a model of respectability and good morals,
	  they will be punished with all the vigour of the law and any
	  subordinate police officer guilty of such conduct will be
	  rigorously prosecuted. A capital idea for a cartoon in a
	  satirical journal—a police sergeant, acquitted of the
	  charge of murder, reading an order that he must serve as a
	  model of respectability and good morals!
	— Lenin

[3] In their polemics in the legal press against the
	  reactionaries, the liberal advocates of trial by jury often
	  categorically deny its political significance and endeavour
	  to show that they favour participation of public
	  representatives in the courts for reasons other than
	  political. This may partly be explained by the lack of
	  ability on the part of our jurists to think politically to a
	  logical conclusion, notwithstanding their specialisation in
	  “political” science. But, chiefly, it is to be
	  explained by the necessity to speak in Aesopean language, by
	  the impossibility openly to declare their sympathies for a
	  constitution.
	— Lenin

[4] No one, however, thought of bringing the case to trial
	  quickly.  Despite the fact that the case was remarkably
	  clear and simple, it was not tried until January 23, 1901,
	  although the crime had been committed on April 20, 1899. A speedy , just, and merciful trial!
	— Lenin

[5] These lines were already written when the press brought
	  another confirmation of the correctness of this
	  assertion. At the other end of Russia, in Odessa—a city
	  enjoying the status of a capital—a magistrate acquitted a
	  certain M. Klinkov who had been charged by Station Sergeant
	  Sadukov with disorderly conduct while under arrest in the
	  police-station. At the trial, the accused and his four
	  witnesses testified to the following: Sadukov arrested M.
	  Klinkov, who was in a state of drunkenness, and took him to
	  the police-station. When he became sober, Klinkov demanded
	  to be released, upon which a policeman grabbed him by the
	  collar and began to punch him. Three other police-men
	  arrived on the scene, and the four of them fell upon him,
	  striking him in the face, on the head, the chest, and the
	  sides. Under the rain of blows and covered with blood,
	  Klinkov fell to the floor, whereupon the policemen assaulted
	  him with even greater fury. According to the evidence of
	  Klinkov and his witnesses, this torture was inflicted at the
	  instigation and with the encouragement of Sadukov. As a
	  result of the blows he received, Klinkov lost
	  consciousness. On reviving, he was released from the
	  police-station. Immediately on his release he went to be
	  examined by a physician. The magistrate advised Klinkov to
	  lodge a complaint with the prosecutor against Sadukov and
	  the policemen, to which Kinkov replied that he had already
	  done so and that he would bring twenty witnesses.

One need not be a prophet to foretell that M. Klinkov will
	  fail to get the policemen brought to trial and punished for
	  torture.  They did not actually beat him to death; but if,
	  contrary to expectation, they are prosecuted, they are sure
	  to get off lightly.
	— Lenin

[6] Derzhimorda —the name of the policeman in N. V. Gogol’s comedy The Inspector-General ; a boorish, insolent oppressor, a man of
violence.

[7] Lenin quotes from Gleb Uspensky’s “Fyodor Mikhailovich Reshetnikov.”

 |  | | | II. Why Accelerate the Vicissitude of the Times? |

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V. I. Lenin
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Casual Notes
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------------------------------------------------------------
II. Why Accelerate the Vicissitude of the Times?
------------------------------------------------------------


The Assembly of Nobles of Orel Gubernia has adopted an interesting
      project, but more interesting is the debate which it occasioned.

The issue is the following. The gubernia Marshal of the Nobility,
      M. A. Stakhovich, proposed in his report the conclusion of a contract with
      the Finance Department, under which the Orel nobles would be appointed to
      the posts of excise-collectors. With the introduction of the liquor
      monopoly forty collectors are to be appointed to gather the moneys from
      the government liquor shops. Their remuneration will amount to 2,180
      rubles per annum (900 rubles salary, 600 rubles travelling expenses, and
      680 rubles for hiring a guard). The nobles thought it would be a good
      thing to get these posts, and for this purpose it was suggested that they
      form a guild and enter into a contract with the Treasury. Instead of the
      required deposit (from 3,000 to 5,000 rubles), they suggested that at
      first 300 rubles per annum be deducted from the pay of each collector,
      which sums could serve to establish a nobles’ guaranty fund to be
      deposited with the liquor department.

The proposal—certainly a practical one—proves that our higher
      estate possesses a highly developed flair for grabbing slices of the state
      pie wherever possible. But it is precisely this business acumen that
      seemed to many of the high-born landlords to be excessive, disreputable,
      and unworthy of nobility. A heated discussion flared up on the question,
      in the course of which three distinct points of view came to light.

The first is the practical point of view. A man must live, the nobility is
      in straitened circumstances ... here is an opportunity to earn money
      ... surely they cannot refuse to help the poor nobles. Besides, the
      collectors could help to encourage sobriety among the people. The second
      is the point of view of the romantics. To trade in liquor, to be in a
      position only slightly above that of a bar tender, subordinate to common
      store managers, “very often persons of the lower orders”!?... and
      there followed a hot stream of words about the high calling of the
      nobility. We intend to deal with these speeches, but first let us mention the third point of view—that of the statesmen. On the one hand,
      there is no denying that the thing seems some what discreditable, but, on
      the other, it must be admitted that it is lucrative. But we can make money
      and at the same time preserve our virtue. The chief excise officer may
      even hand out appointments without deposits, and all the forty nobles may
      obtain posts at the request of the gubernia Marshal of the Nobility
      without forming a guild or entering into contracts, otherwise “the
      Minister of Internal Affairs may refuse to endorse the decision in order
      to safeguard the proper functioning of the existing state system.” In all
      probability, this wise opinion would have prevailed, had not the Marshal
      of the Nobility made two important statements: first, that the contract
      had already been submitted to the Council of the Ministry of Finance,
      which had recognised its feasibility and approved it in principle; and,
      secondly, that “it was impossible to obtain such posts merely at the
      request of the gubernia Marshal of the Nobility.” The report was
      approved.

Poor romantics! They suffered defeat. But how eloquently they had
      pleaded!

“Hitherto the nobility has provided people for leading positions
      only. The report suggests the formation of some sort of guild. Is this
      compatible with the past, the present, and the future of the nobility?
      According to the law, if a bartender embezzles funds, the nobleman will
      have to step behind the bar. Death is preferable to such a position
      !"

Good Lord! How noble man is! Death is preferable to selling vodka! To
      trade in corn is quite a noble occupation, particularly in years of bad
      harvest, when high profits can be made out of the starvation of the
      people. A still more noble occupation is usury in grain, the lending of
      grain to the starving peasants in the winter with the stipulation that
      they will work in the summer at one-third of the usual wage-rate. In the
      central black earth zone, in which Orel Gubernia is situated, the
      landlords have always engaged in this noble form of usury with particular
      zeal. And in order to draw a distinction between noble and ignoble usury,
      it is necessary, of course, to proclaim as loudly as possible that the
      position of a bartender is a degrading occupation for a nobleman.

“We must carefully cherish our calling which is expressed in the
      celebrated imperial manifesto by the words, unselfishly to serve the
      people. To serve for selfish motives would contradict this.... A
      social-estate that has to its credit such services as the valiant martial
      deeds of its ancestors and that had to bear the brunt of the great reforms
      of Emperor Alexander II still possesses opportunities for the future
      fulfilment of its duties to the state.”

Yes, unselfish service! The distribution of lands, the granting of
      inhabited estates, i.e., gifts of thousands of dessiatines of land,
      together with thousands of serfs; the establishment of a class of big
      landowners possessing hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of
      dessiatines and by exploitation reducing millions of peasants to
      poverty—these are the manifestations of this unselfishness. The
      reference to the “great” reforms of Alexander II is
      particularly charming. Take, for example, the emancipation of the
      peasants. How unselfishly our noble aristocracy fleeced these peasants,
      compelling them to pay for their own land, at a price three times its real
      value; robbing them by cutting off various parts of their land; exchanging
      their own sandy wastes, gullies, and uncultivable land for the peasants’
      good land;— and now they have the insolence to boast of these
      exploits!

“There is nothing patriotic in the liquor trade.... Our traditions
      are not based on rubles, but on service to the state. The nobility must
      not become stockbrokers.”

Sour grapes! The nobility “must not” become stock brokers
      because large capital is required on the Stock Exchange, and our quondam
      slaveowners have squandered their fortunes. In the eyes of the broad
      masses they have long ago become, not stockbrokers, but the slaves of the
      Stock Exchange, the slaves of the ruble. And in their pursuit of the
      ruble, the “highest social-estate” has long been engaged in
      such highly patriotic occupations as the manufacture of raw brandy, the
      installation of sugar-refineries and other enterprises, participation in
      sundry dubious commercial and industrial undertakings, begging at the
      doors of high Court circles, grand dukes, cabinet ministers, etc., etc.,
      in order to obtain concessions and government guarantees for such
      enterprises, in order to entreat for doles in the form of privileges for the Nobles’ Bank, sugar-export bonuses, slices
      (thousands of dessiatines in extent!) of Bashkirian or other land, soft,
      lucrative jobs, etc.

“The ethics of the nobility bear the traces of history, of social
      position..."—as well as traces of the stable in which the
      nobles were trained to practise violence and indignities on the
      muzhiks. The age-long habit of command has bred in the nobles something
      even more subtle: the ability to clothe their exploiting interests in
      pompous phrases, calculated to deceive the ignorant “common people.”
      Listen further:

“Why accelerate the vicissitude of the times? It may be a prejudice,
      but old traditions forbid us to help bring these things upon
      ourselves....”

These words, uttered by Mr. Naryshkin (one of the members of the council
      that advocated the state point of view), express a true class sense.

      0f course, to hesitate to accept the position of a collector (or even of a
      bartender) is, in these times, mere prejudice. But does not the
      unparalleled and shameless exploitation of the peasantry by the landlords
      in our rural districts rest on the prejudices of the benighted masses of
      the peasantry? Prejudices are dying out anyhow; why then hasten their
      death by openly bringing together the noble and the bartender, and in this
      way help the peasant to understand (which he is beginning to do, anyway)
      the simple truth that the noble landlord is a usurer and robber, a beast
      of prey, like any village blood sucker, only immeasurably more powerful
      because of the lands he owns, his ancient privileges and his close
      relations with the tsarist government, his habit to command, and his
      ability to conceal his

      Judas [4] nature under a doctrine of romanticism and magnanimity?

Yes, Mr. Naryshkin is certainly a counsellor from whose lips political
      wisdom drops. I am not surprised that the Marshal of the Orel Nobility
      replied to him in terms so refined that they would do honour to an
      English lord. He said:

“It would be mere boldness on my part to object to the authorities
      whom we have heard here, were I not convinced that in arguing against
      their opinions, I am not arguing against their convictions.”

Now, this is true, and, moreover, in a much wider sense than
      Mr. Stakhovich, who indeed accidentally let the truth slip, imagined. All the nobles, from the most practical to the most
      romantic, share the same convictions. All are fully convinced of their
      “sacred right” to possess the hundreds and thousands of
      dessiatines of land their ancestors grabbed or had granted to them by
      land-grabbers, the right to exploit the peasants and play the dominant
      role in the state, the right to enjoy the biggest (and if the worst comes
      to the worst, even smaller) slices of the state pie, i.e., the people’s
      money. Their opinions differ only in regard to the expediency of
      undertaking this or that enterprise, and their discussions of these
      divergent opinions are as instructive for the proletariat as are all other
      domestic quarrels in the camp of the exploiters. Such disputes bring out
      the differences between the common interests of the capitalist or landlord
      class as a whole, and the interests of individual persons or separate
      groups. Not infrequently in the course of such disputes, one blabs what
      one has sought ever so carefully to conceal.

Besides this, however, the Orel episode throws some light upon the
      character of the notorious liquor monopoly. What benefits our official and
      semi-official press expected from it! Increased revenues, improved
      quality, and less drunkenness! But instead of increased revenues, all we
      actually have so far is an increase in the price of spirits, confusion in
      the budget, and the impossibility of determining the exact financial
      results of the whole operation. In stead of improvement in quality, we
      have deterioration; and the government is hardly likely to impress the
      public with its reports, displayed in the entire press, of the successful
      results of the “degustation” of the new “government
      vodka.” Instead of less drunkenness, we have more illicit trading in
      spirits, augmented police incomes from this trading, the opening of liquor
      shops over the protests of the population, which is petitioning against
      their being

      opened, [1] and increased drunkenness in the

      streets. [2] But above all, what a new and gigantic field is opened for official
      arbitrariness, tyranny, favour-currying and embezzlement by the creation
      of this new state enterprise, with a turnover of many millions of rubles,
      and the creation of a whole army of new officials! It is the invasion of a
      locust-swarm of officials, boot-licking, intriguing, plundering, wasting
      seas of ink and reams upon reams of paper. The Orel project is nothing but
      an attempt to cloak in legal forms the striving to grab the fattest
      possible slices of the state pie, a desire which is so prevalent in our
      provinces, and which, in view of the unrestrained power of the officials
      and the gagging of the people, threatens to intensify the reign of tyranny
      and plunder. A simple illustration: last autumn the newspapers reported
      “a building incident in connection with the liquor monopoly.” In
      Moscow, three warehouses are being built for storing vodka to supply the
      whole of Moscow Gubernia. The government appropriated a sum of 1,637,000
      rubles for this purpose. It now appears that “it has been found
      necessary to make a supplementary appropriation of two-and-a-half

	millions .” [3] Apparently the officials who had charge of this state property pinched a
      little more than fifty pairs of trousers and a few pairs of boots!


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] For example, it was recently reported in the newspapers that as far back
      as 1899 a number of villages in Archangel Gubernia adopted resolutions
      against the opening of liquor shops in their localities. The government,
      which at this very moment is introducing the liquor monopoly into that
      district, of course answered with a refusal, no doubt out of
      regard for the sobriety of the people!
    — Lenin

[2] This is quite apart from the enormous amount of money the peasant communes
      have lost as a result of the liquor monopoly. Hitherto they obtained a revenue from liquor shops. The Treasury has deprived them
      of this source of revenue without a kopek compensation! In his interesting
      book, Das hungernde Russland ( Reiseeindrücke,
      Beobochtungen und Untersuchungen [ Starving Russia (Travel
      Impressions, Observations, and Inquiries).— Ed .] by
      C. Lehmann and Parvus, Stuttgart, Dietz Verlag, 1900), Parvus justly
      describes this as robbing the rural commune funds . He states that
      according to the calculations of the Samara Gubernia Zemstvo, the losses
      incurred by the peasant communes in the three years 1895-97 as a result of
      the introduction of the liquor monopoly amounted to 3,150,000
      rubles !
    — Lenin

[3] Author’s italics, see S. Peterburgskiye Vedomosti ( St. Petersburg Recorder ), No. 239, September 1, 1900.
    — Lenin

[4] Lenin refers to Porphyry (nicknamed Judas) Golovlyov, a sanctimonious,
      hypocritical landlord serf-owner described in M. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s The Golovlyov’ Family .

 | I. Beat – But Not to Death! | | | III. Objective Statistics |

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V. I. Lenin
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Casual Notes
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III. Objective Statistics
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Our government is in the habit of accusing its opponents, not only
      revolutionaries, but also liberals, of being tendentious. Have you ever
      read the comments of the official press on the liberal (legal, of course)
      publications? Vestnik Finansov , [2] the organ of the Ministry of Finance, would at times publish reviews of
      the press, and each time the official in charge of this column referred to
      the comments of the (big) liberal magazines on the budget, on the famine,
      or on some government measure, he always spoke with indignation of their
      “tendentiousness” and, by way of contrast, pointed,
      “objectively,” not only to “the seamy side,” but to the
      “gratifying features.” This, of course, is only a minor example, but
      it illustrates the habitual attitude of the government, its habitual
      tendency to brag of its “objectivity.”

We shall endeavour to bring some satisfaction to these strict and
      impartial judges. We shall endeavour to do this in dealing with
      statistics. Naturally, we shall not take statistics on this or that set of
      facts of public life: it is well known that the facts are recorded by
      biased people and generalised by institutions which are sometimes
      decidedly “tendentious,” like the Zemstvos. No, we shall deal with
      statistics on ... laws. The most ardent supporter of the government, we
      imagine, would hardly dare to assert that there is anything more objective
      and impartial than statistics on laws—a simple calculation of the
      decisions made by the government, quite apart from any consideration of
      the divergence between word and deed, between promulgation and execution,
      etc.

And now, to the matter.

The State Senate publishes, as is known, a Compendium of the Laws and
	Edicts of the Government , a periodical that announces the measures
	adopted by the government. We shall examine these facts, and note what the laws and edicts are about. Precisely: what
	they are about. We dare not criticise the official edicts; we shall
	merely compute the number issued in this or that sphere. The January
	newspapers reprinted from this government publication the content of
	Nos. 2905 to 2929 of last year and Nos. 1 to 66 of the current
	year. Thus, in the period from December 29, 1900, to January 12, 1901,
	the very threshold of the new century, ninety-one laws and edicts were
	promulgated. The character of these ninety-one laws renders them very
	convenient for “statistical” analysis. None of them is out
	standing; there is nothing that puts everything else in the shade and lays a special impress upon the present period of domestic
      administration. All of them are relatively petty and answer to current
      requirements continuously and regularly arising. We thus see the
      government in its everyday garb, and this serves as a further guarantee
      of the objectivity of the “statistics.”

Of the ninety-one laws, thirty-four, i.e., more than a third, deal with
      one and the same subject: extension of the call dates for payment of
      capital on shares or of payment of purchases of stock in various
      commercial and industrial joint-stock companies. These laws can be
      recommended to newspaper readers as a means of refreshing their memory in
      regard to the list of our industrial enterprises and the names of various
      firms. The second group of laws is entirely analogous to the first in
      content. It deals with changes in the articles of association of
      commercial and industrial companies. These include fifteen acts revising
      the articles of association of K. and S. Popov Bros., tea dealers;

      A. Nauman & Co., cardboard and tar-paper manufacturers; I. A. Osipov
      & Co., tanners, and leather, canvas and linen merchants; etc., etc. To
      these must be added eleven more acts, of which six were passed to meet
      certain requirements of trade and industry (the establishment of a public
      bank and a mutual credit society; the fixing of prices of securities to be
      taken as deposit for state contracts; rules for the movement of
      privately-owned cars on the railways; regulations governing brokers on the
      Borisoglebsk Corn Exchange), while five deal with the appointment of six
      additional policemen and two mounted police sergeants to four factories
      and one mine.

Thus, sixty out of ninety-one of the laws, i.e., two- thirds, directly
      serve the various practical needs of our capitalists and (partly) protect
      them from the discontent of the workers. The impartial language of figures
      tells us that our government, judging by the very nature of most of its
      everyday laws and edicts, is a loyal servant of the capitalists and that,
      in relation to the capitalist class as a whole, it functions in exactly
      the same way as, say, the head office of an iron trust, or as does the
      office of a sugar-refining syndicate in relation to the capitalists in the
      individual branches of industry. Of course, the fact that special laws have to be passed in order to introduce some trifling
      alteration in the articles of association of a company or to extend the
      call dates for payments on shares simply shows the unwieldiness of our
      state machinery; only a slight “improvement in the machinery”
      is necessary for all this to come under the jurisdiction of the local
      authorities. On the other hand, the unwieldiness of the machine, the
      excessive centralisation, the necessity for the government itself to poke
      its nose into everything—this is a feature of the whole of our
      public life, not merely of the sphere of commerce and industry. Hence, the
      examination of the number of enacted laws of this or that kind gives us a
      pretty fair insight into what the government interests itself in, into
      what it thinks and does.

But the government displays considerably less interest in private
      associations that do not pursue aims so honourable from the moral point of
      view, and safe from the political point of view, as profit-making (except
      that it displays interest in order to hamper, prohibit, suppress,
      etc.). In the period “under review”—the writer of these lines
      is in the civil service, and he hopes, therefore, that the reader will
      forgive his employment of bureaucratic terms—the articles of
      association of two societies were sanctioned (those of the Society for the
      Aid to Needy Students in the Vladikavkaz Boys’ Gymnasium, and of the
      Vladikavkaz Society for Educational Excursions and Tours); by imperial
      grace permission to change the statutes was authorised for three others
      (the Saving and Mutual Aid Societies of the office employees and workers
      of the Lyudinovo and Sukreml Works and of the Maltsov Railway, the First
      Hop-Cultivation Society, and the Philanthropic Society for the
      Encouragement of Female Labour); fifty-five laws were passed pertaining to
      commercial and industrial companies; and five, in relation to various
      other societies. In the sphere of commercial and industrial interests,
      “we” exert our best efforts for the task and strive to do
      everything possible to facilitate association between merchants and
      manufacturers (strive, but do nothing, for the unwieldiness of the machine
      and the end less red tape considerably restrict the
      “possibilities” in the police state). In the sphere of
      non-commercial associations, we stand in principle for homeopathy. Now,
      hop-growing societies and societies for the encouragement of female labour are not so
      bad, but educational excursions.... God knows what may be discussed on
      these excursions! And will not the constant surveillance of the inspectors
      be made difficult? Now, you know, one must be careful in handling fire.

Schools. As many as three new schools have been established. And what
      schools!  An elementary school for farm yard workers in the village of
      Blagodatnoye on the estate of His Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke Pyotr
      Nikolayevich. That the villages belonging to the Grand Dukes are all

      paradises [1] I have long ceased to doubt. But neither do I now doubt that
      even the highest personages may sincerely and whole-heartedly interest
      themselves in the education of the “younger brother.” Moreover, the
      rules of the Dergachi Rural Handicraft School, and of the Asanovo
      Elementary Agricultural School have been confirmed. I regret that I have
      not a reference book at hand to inform me whether or not some
      highly-placed personage owns these village paradises, in which popular
      education—and landlord farming are being cultivated with such
      zeal. But I console myself with the thought that such inquiries do not
      enter into the duties of a statistician.

This, then, is the sum total of the laws that express “the
      government’s solicitude for the people.” As the reader will observe, I
      have made the greatest possible allowances in grouping these laws. Why,
      for example, is the Hop-Cultivation Society not a commercial enterprise?
      Perhaps be cause commerce is not the only thing that is discussed at its
      meetings. Or take the school for farmyard workers. Who can tell whether it
      is a school or an improved stockyard?

We have still to deal with the last group of laws that shows the
      government’s solicitude for itself. This group consists of three times as
      many laws as we assigned to the last two categories, twenty-two laws,
      dealing with administrative reforms, each one more radical than the
      other—changing the name of the village Platonovskoye to
      Nikolayevskoye; modifying the articles of association, staffs, rules, lists, hours for sessions (of certain uyezd conferences), etc.; increasing
      the salary of midwives attached to army units in the Caucasus military
      area; determining the sums for shoeing and veterinary treatment of Cossack
      mounts; changing the by-laws of a private commercial school in Moscow;
      defining the rules of the scholarship grants endowed by Privy Councillor
      Daniil Samuilovich Polyakov at the Kozlov Commercial School. I am not sure
      whether I have classified these laws correctly. Do they really express the
      government’s solicitude for itself, or for commercial and industrial
      interests? If I have classified them wrongly, I beg the reader’s
      indulgence, since this is the first attempt that has been made to compile
      statistics on laws. Hitherto no one has attempted to raise this sphere of
      knowledge to the level of a strict science, not even the professors of
      Russian state law.

Finally, one legislative act must be treated as a special, independent
      group, both because of its content and be cause of its being the first
      governmental measure in the new century. This is the law concerning the
      “increase in the area of forests to be devoted to the development
      and improvement of His Imperial Majesty’s hunting.” A grand début worthy of a great power!

Now, to strike a balance. Statistics would be incomplete without it.

Fifty laws and edicts devoted to various commercial and industrial
      companies and enterprises; a score of administrative name-changes and
      reforms; two creations and three reorganisations of private societies;
      three schools for the training of landlords’ employees; six policemen and
      two mounted sergeants appointed to factories. Can there be any doubt
      whatever that such richly varied legislative and administrative activity
      will guarantee our country rapid and undeviating progress in the twentieth
      century?


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Notes
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[1] A play on the name of the village Blagodatnoye which implies an earthly
      paradise.— Ed .

[2] Vestnik Finansov, Promyshlennosti i Torgooli ( Finance,
	Industry and Trade Messenger )—a weekly journal published by
	the Ministry of Finance in St. Petersburg from November 1883 to 1917
	(until January 1885 it was called Ukazatel Pravitelstvennykh
	Rasporyazheny po Ministerstvu Finansov — Record of
	Government Instructions, Ministry of Finance ). It carried
	government regulations, economic articles, and reviews.

 | II. Why Accelerate the Vicissitude of the Times? | | |  |

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